


Choices and Abilities

by igrockspock



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Female Friendship, Gen, Infertility, Motherhood, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-06
Updated: 2015-04-06
Packaged: 2018-03-21 11:55:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3691329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/igrockspock/pseuds/igrockspock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Depending on your point of view, Minerva McGonagall has no children, or she has hundreds of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Choices and Abilities

The first time anyone asked Minerva when she planned to have children, it was at a parent-teacher conference. Well, actually, _ask_ was too polite a word. She was a dreadful, simpering woman whose rat-like eyes were half-hidden by a pink-and-yellow atrocity of a hat. And she'd come all the way from Surrey because her precious, darling, _idiot_ of a boy had _earned_ a "T" on his practice OWL.

"I know you think I'm being a bit ridiculous," she said, tapping absently on the red ink scrawled across the top of her son's parchment. She smiled beatifically. "Of course, if _you_ had children, you'd understand."

Minerva smiled back, though she imagined her grin looked rather more sarcastic. "Would you like some sugar for your tea?" she asked, passing the rose petal-bedecked bowl across her desk. She'd transfigured the contents to salt ten minutes ago.

***

Minerva ought to have known that getting married was akin to stamping ASK ME ABOUT MY REPRODUCTIVE FUTURE on her forehead. After all, wizarding society was hardly known for its liberalism. After she'd married a Muggle and kept her surname, she could hardly expect them to show forbearance on her reproductive plans. Still, a woman could hope -- even a woman as practical as Minerva.

Which, naturally, meant that her hopes would be dashed as often as possible, preferably in public, preferably in settings that demanded politeness.

Armorious Finch was new to the board of directors. He wore his graying hair in a neat ponytail. His pinstriped robes were the very picture of propriety. At his induction dinner, he spoke to each faculty member for exactly the same amount of time and excused himself from each conversation with practiced ease.

He remarked on what an _unusual_ woman Minerva was. So very headstrong, he had heard. So very _accomplished_.

"And no children at the age of thirty-four," he said smoothly. "Most unusual. Do you plan to?"

His tone was solicitous. He looked genuinely curious.

Minerva glanced around the room. In those days, Hogwarts had few female teachers. She was among the only women at the party.

"Have you asked any of my male colleagues that question, Mr. Finch?" Minerva asked.

Finch smiled silkily. "Actually, now that you mention it, I have not."

He looked as if he might say more, but Minerva cut him off.

"Then what, pray tell, is your fixation on _my_ reproductive organs?"

She watched in satisfaction as his face flushed deep red, then she spun on her heel and walked toward the punchbowl, leaving Finch stuttering awkwardly in the middle of the room.

***

Augusta Longbottom was the only person whose questions Minerva would tolerate. They'd been roommates at Hogwarts -- mortal enemies at first, but later they'd realized they could wreak more havoc with the establishment if they were friends.

"Do you and Robert plan to have children?" Augusta asked. She winced at a loud clang from the playroom and shook her head. "If you said no, I wouldn't blame you."

"Maybe," Minerva allowed. "If the reproductive potions ever work. The medi-witches say I can try as long as I want, but..."

If she hadn't conceived a child by now, she probably wasn't going to. Minerva hadn't told anyone, though it was hard to say why. Maybe she was embarrassed to want something as traditional as a child; maybe she was embarrassed that she couldn't. Or maybe she just didn't want pity.

Augusta put her tea cup down and looked toward the loo. A puddle of water was still seeping across the floor. At least it was _clear_ water. An hour ago, it was -- well, it didn't bear thinking about. Young Frank had got hold of a wand somehow and applied it to the toilet with disastrous results. The plumber hadn't arrived yet, though he'd sworn he'd come between one and three in the afternoon.

"Is now a terrible time to admit I envy you not having children?" Augusta asked, smiling conspiratorially. 

Minerva smiled back. "No, it is an _excellent_ time."

***

The reproductive potion came in innocuous-looking glass bottles. It smelled like nothing and tasted like nothing, and she could almost forget she'd taken it -- that was, until she ended up crying in a broom closet because she thought someone had looked at her the wrong way.

Robert was always kind and understanding. The medi-witches said emotional volatility was to be expected. Minerva pretended that she did not mind until she couldn't anymore.

She looked at her husband, sitting placidly at the kitchen table, and she hated him for everything he didn't have to go through. For how easy it was to want a child when you didn't have to chart cycles and swallow potions and cry alone while trying to remember that _you_ haven't changed, your hormones have. She put the bottle down on the table.

"I can't do this anymore," she said slowly and clearly. The truth was, she had never wanted to. She had only done it because she loved him and she thought she owed him for deceiving him about being a witch. 

They stuck together for a few more months after that -- long enough to make it clear that the divorce wasn't about a child. It was because Minerva was an adventurer and Robert was not. Minerva would rather die than tell an untruth, and Robert would rather die than say something that would make someone else uncomfortable. And maybe, yes, it was because Minerva had lied about being a witch, and it's hard for a relationship to come back from that level of deceit. But stopping trying to have a baby made one thing clear: trying to have a baby had been the only thing they'd had in common for many years.

They wrote _irreconcilable differences_ on the divorce papers. Minerva's parents offered to let her stay with them. She suspected they only wanted to maximize their opportunities to say _I told you so_ , and she booked a holiday house in Tuvalu instead. It was the best summer of her life.

***

Sometimes Minerva thought she'd like to adopt. Five years from now, she'd say. The five years would roll around, and she'd add another five. 

"There's no biological clock for adoption," she said. Witches could live two hundred years; there was no need to rush into motherhood at forty-five, or even at fifty or sixty.

Gradually, the five years turned to ten. Dippet retired and Dumbledore took his place. Minerva transferred from Arithmancy to Transfiguration and became the head of Gryffindor House to boot. Sometimes she could see the problems coming. They arrived with greasy hair and ill-fitting clothes, and it was obvious that if anyone cared for them, they weren't very good at it. Other times, they came out of the blue: Sirius Black, caught drinking in the dormitory at twelve years old, begging her not to owl his mum because she didn't need another reason to love him less. She cared for them all, even the ones like Severus Snape, who weren't technically her concern. Gradually, in between wrapping an anonymous Christmas gift for young Severus and answering a startlingly frank birth control question for Lily Evans, it dawned on her that she had children. Rather a lot of them, actually, and it didn't matter that most of them had mothers already. They were nightmares and hellions and idiots, but she rather liked them -- and even the worst among them were already toilet trained.

***

The first war started, and Minerva fought for the world she wanted her children to grow up in. 

Severus Snape came to teach at Hogwarts, a broken, sneering, and thoroughly unpleasant man. Minerva did her best to befriend him anyway because she remembered who he was when he was a boy (and because she needed someone to back her up when the Board complained that she marked her students too harshly).

Harry Potter arrived, and Minerva found him a spot on the Quidditch team and tried her best to let him be himself instead of James reincarnated. It wasn't much recompense for everything that had happened to him, but it was more than most of the faculty gave him.

She put an itching hex on Dolores Umbridge's knickers in the name of truth, justice, and fairness. Well, no, better not pretend. That one was for petty vengeance; it wasn't for the children at all.

And then Dumbledore died. Her friend, Severus Snape, killed Albus Dumbledore, her oldest and truest friend. And then Severus claimed Hogwarts as his prize.

The first time a student's screams rang through the corridors, Minerva ran toward the headmaster's office. 

"Lemon drop," she said to the gargoyle, and then she shook her head. Of all the times to forget that Albus was gone. Her title was still Deputy Headmistress, but it meant nothing; Severus would hardly allow her into the office he'd usurped, much less listen to her counsel.

And yet, the bookcase slid away, revealing the staircase, just as it always had. _Bless you, Albus_ , she thought. Of course, he would have enchanted the gargoyle somehow to make sure she would have a way in.

Severus sat at Albus' desk, his head bent low over a book. He didn't bother to look up.

"Complaints will be accepted at faculty meetings every other Tuesday at 7:45 a.m.," he drawled.

Minerva pursed her lips. Maybe he had killed Albus. Maybe he was Voldemort's right hand man -- but he was still the eleven-year-old boy who'd once hidden in the toilets rather than attend a transfiguration class he thought he couldn't pass. He'd underestimated her willingness deliver instruction in the boys' room, just as he was underestimating her now.

"Severus Snape, you will hear my complaints whenever I want to give them," she said.

Severus looked up slowly and closed his book with a thump. "Very well," he drawled. "I suppose I can offer you five minutes of my time."

Her voice suddenly faltered. What could she possibly say to make Dumbledore's murderer see reason? 

"Tell me Amycus Carrow is not using the Cruciatus curse against students," she said. Her voice was quieter than she'd intended. She shouldn't have been shocked, much less disappointed, but she was: she had thought the man Albus had given his life to defend had at least one sliver of goodness within him.

" _A_ student," Severus corrected. "A Hufflepuff. I hardly thought you would care."

Minerva clenched her hand around her wand. She ought to finish him here and now. _Avada Kedavra_. She thought she could mean it. If not that, _something_. Jelly legs. Boils. Pustules. Transfigure that godawful claw-footed armchair into a lion and watch it eat Severus alive. She swallowed hard. Albus' portrait was looking at her. She had promised him that whatever happened, she would stay.

"You of all people know I care. They are my children. _All_ of them."

"And they are lucky for it," Severus said, less sharply than she had expected. Above him, Albus' portrait looked wary, and Severus shook his head. "No doubt more of them would be in the dungeon if not for your incessant whinging." He waved a hand airily. "Go retrieve your Hufflepuff if you must. But know that you will not be able to spare all of them from the Dark Lord's justice."

Minerva straightened her robes and drew herself up to her full height. "Maybe not, Severus. But I assure you, I will try."


End file.
